By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The transporters continued to fleece the passengers as well as the merchants despite for the last two years despite the completion of Lowari tunnel and the cutting short of driving duration by half between Dir Upper and Chitral due to the bypassing of Lowari Top road.
The tunnel had been inaugurated by the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif on 20th August 2017 after which it was opened for the public transport and the approach roads on both sides are nearing completion with the result that the duration of journey has been reduced significantly from five hours to only two-and-half hours.
The people of Chitral complained that neither the fares of passengers vehicles nor that of the goods transport have been revised which had been fixed by the administration when the vehicles passed through the Lowari Top negotiating 85 numbers of turns on both sides.
The village nazim of Jughoor Sajjad Ahmed Khan said that a number of his written suggestions to the district administration in his official capacity to rationalize the fares which were exorbitant as compared to the other adjacent districts.
Citing examples, he said that the single fare between Upper Dir and Peshawar is Rs.450 against the distance of 271 kilometers while it is Rs.700 between Dir upper and Chitral against the distance of 108 kilometers.
“In the 2-D Car Service, the single fare is Rs.1050 and Rs. 1500 for Peshawar-Upper Dir and Upper Dir-Chitral routes respectively”, he said adding that there was no rationale behind the inflated rate of fares between Dir and Chitral after the completion of the tunnel and the replacement of the dusty and bumpy roads by metalled roads.
The fares of goods transport are also said to be dictated by the transporters with the result that the prices of daily use items showed an upsurge for the consumers at large.
A trader of cloths in Shahi Bazar, Bashir Hussain Azad told this scribe that the trucker transporters charged fares for Chitral which is about three times of the one between Peshawar and Dir Upper.
He said that the fare of one maund (50 kg) from Peshawar to Upper Dir is Rs.100 but its as high as Rs.250 to Rs.300 for Chitral from Peshawar and this huge difference was justifiable when the trucks passed through the Lowari Top road.
He complained that the government never bothered to look into the arbitrary fare mechanism of truck transporters for Chitral which ultimately affects the people.
